Chapter 29 - From icebergs to the self—point of view

Abstract

The self is not just in the brain and or body. Rather it is closely related to its respective environmental context. This raises the question whether the self shows an analogous neuro-ecological basis in the world. We first demonstrate how environmental life shapes and impacts the neural basis of self including its topography and dynamic. That is followed by the assumption of a neuro-ecological background layer of self complementing its mental surface layer. Finally, we propose that the neuro-ecological background layer provides what philosophically has been described as the point of view, the anchoring of the self in the world from which it perceives and accesses the world in a perspectival way. This does not lay bare the neuro-ecological scale-free temporal nestedness of the self in the world but also carries major implications for our more philosophical, i.e., ontological understanding of self, brain, and world. The assumption of a deeper layer of self, a neuro-ecological background layer constituting its point of view, puts the self on a par with the iceberg: like the iceberg, the self is also exposed to various forces both from within itself and without itself by environmental context. Accordingly, here is yet another instance where even one of the key features of the mind, the self, exhibits features analogous to those characterizing the basic features of nature.